Tube preamp with or without phono stage?

@atmasphere and others, as I'm considering the MP-3 I'd like to ask both your objective and subjective opinions.  What would you consider to be the key specs of both a preamp and phono stage?  My simplistic understanding is low impedance, noise and distortion.

Your website states:
"By incorporating the phono into the preamp, we eliminate the variables of interconnection between the phono section and the line stage and we offer one of the best volume controls available in the industry."

What variables of interconnection are being referred to here?

This is my first tube component.  I'm very familiar with solid state and digital.  I'm interested in finding out what a tube component can do with the sound of both my digital and analog sources.

Atmasphere, some manufacturers of very good sounding preamps install a phono section as after-thought or they don't install one at all. I realize that this is not always the case but I am very satisfied with my external phono preamp.

What variables of interconnection are being referred to here?

The issues are the sound of the interconnect that you have to use with an external phono section, how well its power supplies are built, how well its grounded and so on- just like what happens when its built-in.

some manufacturers of very good sounding preamps install a phono section as after-thought or they don't install one at all. I realize that this is not always the case but I am very satisfied with my external phono preamp.

Good!- and very true- like I said, its all about intention!  I've experienced some of the preamps as you describe above and one of them had a phono section so bad that I'm convinced one of those off-the wall phono sections Radio Shack used to sell in a bubble pack would sound better :/

We've been asked to do an external preamp quite often. The way we see it, the biggest issue is the connection to whatever the phono section is driving. Some people don't want to have anything to do with digital and in a purist way want to hook the phono section right to the power amp. To really do that right, the output of the phono section has to have enough voltage to drive the amp to full output and also have some sort of volume control system. Right about that point a full-function preamp starts to make a lot of sense! We've been doing balanced line with our preamps in order to eliminate the 'sound' of the interconnect cables involved, but in order to do that the circuit that drives the output has to have some guts (our preamps can drive 600 ohms no worries and is a direct-coupled output); if you are going through that trouble to build that into a phono section so you can do the hookup properly, at that point you have 99% of what a full-function preamp is already!

We built our preamps to essentially be stand-alone phono sections that can drive power amps properly but we added enough switching so that the line drive can be used as a line section. Anyone that knows me knows that I really am analog first; heck, I don't even have a digital setup in my home system.

atmasphere,

Have not had time to email you about the Technics/ Triplanar but will. Still recovering from back surgery. 
Anyway; I use a Manley Steelhead to drive Pass XA 160.8s directly.

Norbert

Hello, my friend makes a awesome preamp that I highly recommend and it sounds like something your looking for. Except the only characteristic you didn't mention, and now I'm concerned that it might not fit what your looking for is - musical. It's everything you mentioned along with being a full musical piece. In fact, after being one of his helpful ears for years while he voiced the item, I purchased one for my sons system when I believed he got it right. I presently own older stuff because I've sorta been around the block with the hobby for close to 30 years. My preamps are the Audio Research SP11 mk 2, Marantz 7 early serial number, Stevens & Billington Silver Transformer passive, and for vinyl I use  the phonostage of the Marantz 7, a Conrad Johnson PV-9a, CJ EF-1, and a K&K maxed out. The preamp my friend makes is awesome and his company is called Miracle Audio. Look him up, his name is Mark- will won't be sorry.